Good leaders don’t blame or make excuses — they humbly apologize

Many leaders — bosses of businesses and organizations, whatever the size — tend to have outsized egos. And this becomes the chink in their armor. Some of the weaknesses of many entrepreneurs, professionals and even political leaders are lack of humility, courage and integrity to admit errors in judgement or execution, thus leading to an inability to simply say, “I’m sorry.”

We are all humans, it is not shameful to err or to fail. Often, instead of apologizing and seeking to change for the better, some leaders make excuses and insist on passing the blame to others, especially to subalterns or foes. Just look at the convoluted tales behind the massacre of 44 policemen in Mamasapano: Who was in charge? Who was or will be accountable for that catastrophe? What is the truth?

Lance Gokongwei & Gabby Lopez didn’t pass the buck

Two COOs or children of owners of business conglomerates I admire for coming into their own as capable leaders and who know how to say “I’m sorry” are Lance Y. Gokongwei of JG Summit Holdings, Inc. and Eugenio “Gabby” L. Lopez III of ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp.

I appreciate the sincerity and guts of Lance Gokongwei for recently coming out with a public apology for their Cebu Pacific Air’s  flight delays and cancellations experienced by passengers in December 2014. He said in Congress: “I’m profoundly sorry.” In June 2013 after an accident at Davao airport, Lance Gokongwei also immediately apologized for what he described as a “most unfortunate” plane accident at the Davao City International Airport (DIA), and said he expected the runway to be cleared.

In the case of Gabby Lopez, in the 2006 stampede which killed 74 people and injured 600 fans of the Wowowee game show of ABS-CBN 2, Lopez admirably said in public: “I am responsible and I will hold myself accountable should our justice system so determine.”

South Korean president park & German leader brandt apologized

I believe the best leaders in world history are also among the most humble and truthful when confronted with failings. In April 2014, South Korea’s respected lady President Park Geun-hye apologized for her government’s “poor initial response” to the sinking of the ferry named Sewol, which caused 302 people to die or missing, although that incident wasn’t directly her fault or within her scope of responsibility. After this accident, South Korea’s Prime Minister Chung Hong-won also offered to resign with no equivocations or finger-pointing.

These public apologies by South Korea’s president and prime minister remind me of the late US President Harry Truman, who popularized the phrase “The buck stops here,” indicating his belief and the truth that a leader like the president of a republic has to make final decisions and thus accept the ultimate responsibility for those decisions. Truman in fact kept a sign with that phrase on his desk in the Oval Office of the White House.

What is most admirable is not only leaders who honestly and humble acknowledge failings, more impressive are those leaders who even apologize for the failings or sins to which they personally have no connection to. I can’t forget seeing an old photograph of the 1970 state visit to Poland of then German Chancellor Willy Brandt. 

This courageous late German statesman offered a profound, unequivocal and wordless apology for the Holocaust crimes committed by the racist Nazis three decades earlier against the Polish Jewish minority. Overwhelmed with emotions, Willy Brandt dropped to his knees as he approached a Warsaw war memorial.

Brandt personified the nobility of spirit of the German people, their full acceptance of their inexcusable war crimes in history textbooks or museums and their decisive clean break from the past. Today, Germany is Europe’s most vibrant economy and true democracy trusted by its former foes.

Two examples of business people who sincerely apologized for sins not their fault include: The 1995 apology of then Bayer CEO Helge Wehmeier for their original parent company’s having been complicit in the Holocaust. In 2005, Wachovia CEO Ken Thompson publicly acknowledged that two of its acquired companies had once owned slaves in that ugly part of American history when black people were enslaved. He apologized: “On behalf of Wachovia Corporation, I apologize to all Americans, and especially to African-Americans and people of African descent. We are deeply saddened by these findings.”

How to do a “power apology”

The business psychiatrist Mark Goulston wrote in his book Just Listen three parts of how to make what he described as a “Power Apology” which all of us---not just for entrepreneurs and leaders---can do to be more successful and effective. I have added my comments on these three points:

1. Admit that you were wrong and that you’re sorry. We should learn to really own up to what we did or failed to do, not apologize with lots of excuses to rationalize. I recall my late brilliant Ateneo de Manila University professor in medieval European history Fr. Bartholomew Lahiff, SJ, when he apologized for the many mistakes of the Roman Catholic Church in history and adding his explanations on why those happened, carefully distinguishing “explanation” from “rationalization.”

I’ve read an article before that lots of multi million-dollar medical malpractice lawsuits in America happened just simply because the doctors involved refused to even just sit down to talk to their irate patients or patients’ kin to simply say “I’m sorry.” The study showed that most of those doctors who sincerely and unequivocally apologized, were no longer sued.

It is the same also with angry customer complaints: it is foolish to ignore or argue with unsatisfied customers. Just say “I’m sorry,” own up to failings, and explain.

2. Show them you understand the effect it had on them. This is called “empathy,” which amazingly not a few of our leaders in different sectors of society — whether in business, the different professions and shockingly in politics — seem to lack perhaps due to insulated or spoiled upbringing?

Another reason for this lack of empathy in some leaders is their surrounding themselves only with sipsip sycophantic underlings, who tell them solely positive news and their own propaganda praise releases.

If there is no real empathy or feeling for the aggrieved persons, at least learn to fake it or act as if one empathizes, then apologize!

3. Tell them what you are going to do differently in the future so that it doesn’t happen again. Do not fall into the trap of just mouthing useless apologies as empty rhetoric, without any plan or pledge to change for the better. Be sincere and proactive by immediately and simultaneously already offering better options, changes and alternatives to rectify failings.

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